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70 | Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Guide | Case Study: Africa
The yield from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced
by up to 50% by 2020, according to scientists on the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Many parts of Africa are already considered “water
stressed” – something that will be exacerbated by
climate change.
Any significant rise in temperature could also seriously affect cash crops such as tea or coffee. Arid
and semi-arid areas all over Africa are becoming yet
drier. On average the continent is 0.5 °C warmer than
it was 100 years ago, in some parts even more.
Migration is another outcome of climate change as
people move away from drought-prone areas and
work as labourers on other farms to earn money to
buy food, increasing pressure on particular parts of
the continent.
Case Study: Africa
Ethiopia
Scorched landscapes, withered crops,
dried-up rivers and lakes; or the opposite
– devastating floods; dying livestock, hungry
people. This could be the picture we face
in Africa in a decade unless we manage
climate risks better.
Communities are vulnerable to unfamiliar hazards
and cannot cope with even minor shocks – leading
to a constant rise in the numbers of people needing
humanitarian assistance. The average number of
food emergencies in Africa per year has almost
tripled since the mid-1980s, and in the last year alone
25 million people faced a food crisis.
New research suggests that the vulnerability to the
climate-change threat is in Africa greater than in
many parts of the world. And the changes won’t be
limited to a rising average temperature and changing
rainfall patterns. Droughts and floods are happening
with increasing severity and frequency, accompanied
by diseases such as diarrhoea. Malaria is also making
an appearance at altitudes that previously had no
mosquitoes, such as in the mid-highlands in Ethiopia.
Rift Valley Fever has reappeared.
Africa, with its resources already overstretched,
has little capacity to deal with further disasters from
climate change. Around 90% of people depend on
agriculture for their livelihoods – many are subsistence farmers who only grow enough food to feed
themselves and their families. Any decrease or
change in rainfall patterns could mean crop failure
and consequently serious food shortages or even
famine.
Changing weather patterns in recent years are having a detrimental impact on food security; farmers
are finding they can no longer plant or harvest their
crops as they used to for centuries as rainfall is late
or erratic.
Agricultural production will be severely impacted
by climate change – the area suitable for agriculture, growing seasons and yield are all expected
to decrease. This would further adversely affect
food security and exacerbate malnutrition in some
countries.
Divided by the East African Rift Valley into highlands
and lowlands, Ethiopia has an extraordinarily diverse
climate, from the cool and rainy Dega highlands to
the Danakil depression – one of the hottest, driest
places on Earth.
The economy is based on agriculture, which accounts for half GDP, 60 per cent of exports and 80
per cent of total employment. But only 1 per cent of
farmed land is irrigated and drought can throw the
whole country into crisis and food shortage.
According to Abebe Tadege, head of research at the
national meteorological office in Addis Ababa: “There
have been signs of climate change in Ethiopia since
2000, and even before. Tropical Africa is a hotspot for
precipitation changes. I am very worried. What is the
impact on crops, on tef [the traditional staple], tea,
coffee, livestock?”
With five major droughts in two decades, many
families have not had time to recover and hundreds
of thousands of people live on the brink of survival
every year.
In 2000–3, 46% of the population were malnourished,
according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Meanwhile 2006 saw some of the worst floods in
Ethiopia’s history, displacing people all over the country. Flash floods in Dire Dawa, the second largest
city after Addis Ababa, killed nearly 250 people and
displaced thousands.
More than 400 people died during outbreaks of
acute watery diarrhoea in 2006. Fadis, in the east,
has been badly hit by drought. Many farmers have
suffered from poor harvests year after year due to
erratic rainfall. In recent years the rains have failed
completely.
Yusuf Idris, a village elder, has lived in the area for
40 years and his family and community are regularly
dependent on relief food. The rains have failed consistently for the last few years and he cannot plant
his crops. “When there is a little rain, we can plant
sorghum and maize but we don’t produce much,”
he says.
The nearby River Boco, which used to be one of the
main sources for irrigation in the area dried up several
years ago, partly because of the lack of rainfall. Yusuf
remembers orange and lemon groves beside the
river. He reports that many people in his community
migrate every year because of drought, and scarcity
of food and water.
Malaria
A few kilometres away near the town of Harar,
Lake Halamaya also dried up several years ago,
partly because of the scarcity of rainfall in the region.
Lake Halamaya, about five kilometres long, was the
main source of water for Harar and the surrounding
communities and provided income for fishermen.
Fatiya Abatish Jacob is a local trader who lived near
the lake for 14 years: “I used to get my drinking water
from the lake, now I have to walk eight kilometres
to get it. Also there were many vegetables farmers
round here using the water for irrigation and we used
to get fish. Now there are no fish around here and
vegetables are more expensive.”
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And while there was drought in Harar area to the
south there were bad floods in 2006 in west Shoa,
where 3,000 people were displaced. “Such heavy
flooding hasn’t happened for 40 years,” says Tiringo
Engdawork, Ethiopian Red Cross Society (ERCS)
branch secretary. “It destroyed houses, crops and
cattle.” Local malaria rates have shot up.
Acute Watery Diarrhoea cases were recorded for the
first time in ten years. And there is clearly interaction
between malnutrition, malaria and HIV/AIDS.
ERCS disaster preparedness emphasizes clean water
and tree planting for wood, fruit and terracing. Gabriel
Aebachew, head of organizational development,
believes that they have to now “create awareness of
climate change, collect data and train volunteers” at
branch level.
Despite a decade of rapid economic growth, poverty
remains widespread in Rwanda. Known as the “land
of a thousand hills”, Rwanda is a small landlocked
country surrounded by Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda
and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But
despite its size, it has very diverse ecosystems.
According to relief officer Geude Beyenne: “We have
volunteers trained in disaster preparedness activities
in every part of Ethiopia. We started two years ago
because we realise we are affected by natural calamities more frequently. We are trying to prepare relief
materials such as blankets and jerrycans and store
them in various regions. The policy now is that 10%
of branch income will go to supplies for preparedness
activities.”
Rwanda forms part of the Great East African Plateau,
which rises from the lowlands in the west that are
characterized by swamps and lakes to the highlands
of the east. This divides the country between the Nile
basin and the Congo basin. The climate is moderate
and tropical, with a short dry season from January
to February and a long dry season from June to
September.
The ERCS has also placed considerable importance
on the need to conserve water. Rain “harvesting” is
an efficient way of collecting clean water during the
rainy period and it can last several weeks or months.
“In Moyale, for example, in the south, there is no river
and so rainwater harvesting is important,” Geude
Beyenne explains. “Water is key, especially in disaster
preparedness. Some people in the south might only
use a litre a week.” More than 50 rainwater harvesting
tanks, on roofs and underground, have been built in
the last two or three years.
The ERCS also has a programme of communitybased health care for awareness-raising and
education, but this will have to be scaled up in the
light of climate change. Malaria, typhoid, cholera and
diarrhoea are all diseases that spread more rapidly
during times of hardship.
Diseases that were considered to have been
eradicated are also making a reappearance. In 2006
Rwanda
The agricultural sector is central to Rwandan
environment. It dominates the economy in terms of
contribution to the GDP and it also accounts for over
90% of employment. Agricultural exports represent
over 70% of the total; coffee and tea are the two
main export crops. Climate change could have
serious consequences for agricultural production.
In 2006, there were a number of deaths as a result
of heavy rain and floods, and crops and livestock
were destroyed. Patricia Hajabakiga, the environment
minister, said this affected the national budget as
money intended for economic development was
used for emergency measures such as buying food
relief.
At the same time water levels have gone down and
hydroelectric stations, particularly in Ntaruka and
Mukungwa, have been affected. Electricity generation
has declined and there has been an energy crisis in
the last few years; to produce electricity the government has had to buy generators costing millions of
dollars. This had an impact on the population – with
the price of electricity tripling.
Parts of Rwanda have been hit by persistent drought
over the last few years, rainfall patterns have been erratic with the result that, again, farmers are confused
as to when to plant and harvest. Musoni Didace,
director of the country’s meteorological service says
climate change is “clearly visible” from the rise in
minimum temperatures in the last 30 years of up to
two degrees.
Migration
Bugusera, in southern Rwanda, is an area that has
persistently been hit by drought and here around
40% of people lack secure sources of food. Many
farmers in this area have suffered from bad harvests
due to late or erratic rainfall.
Indeed 2005, was the hottest year for many years in
Rwanda. Temperatures in the capital, Kigali, soared
to 35 °C. Higher temperatures also mean the spread
of diseases such as malaria, already the principal
cause of morbidity and mortality in every province.
Mary Jane Nzabamwita is a farmer in Gashora with
five children to feed. Since 1998 rain has become
unpredictable. “We think it will rain, then it doesn’t
rain and then we lose our harvest,” she explains.
Mary Jane grows sorghum, beans, sweet potatoes
and vegetables, some of which are sold at the market
but last year her harvest was down by half.
The interaction between diseases is also of concern:
someone with malaria, for example, will be more
prone to catching HIV, and vice versa. Malnutrition
also means diseases spread more rapidly. It is a
vicious circle. And diseases thought to have died
out, like cholera, are reappearing. New cholera cases
were recorded for the first time in Kigali in 2006 and
in the north-east in 2007.
She just managed to save enough money to send
her children to school (the children get food from the
World Food Programme at school), but she cannot
afford to pay for health insurance fees for the whole
family. The family now has to drink water from the
nearby swamps and continually suffer from diarrhoea
and malaria.
“I feel like I am going backwards,” she says. “The
children are not doing so well. When you see a child
of ten, you think he is five.”
A Rwandan Red Cross Society (RRCS) volunteer
in Bugusera explains that you can now see more
erratic climate patterns and drought is making people
migrate to other areas of Rwanda where they can
work. People might also go to a nearby town, earn
some cash there by petty trade and buy some food
to sell in their own villages.
Many families are separated. Mimi and Josephine are
looking after their children and their farms while their
husbands have gone elsewhere to earn some cash.
This year their maize crops have failed due to lack of
rainfall and they are still hoping for rain for their bean
harvest. If they fail or come late, they do not know
how they are going to get their food.
Migration became such as serious problem that
almost 80% of the people in the area left their farms
to look for work in other regions between 2003–5.
However, the local government has tried to stockpile
maize, sorghum and beans and migration has now
decreased, according to Viateur Ndavisabye, executive secretary of the Gashora regional government.
“Climate change is a big problem,” says Apollinaire
Karamaga, RRCS secretary general. “We need to
train volunteers with basic skills, like being able to
advise farmers when to sow seeds, dig the swamp,
and so on. We need to help them think, ‘What can I
do according to my realities to cope?’”
According to Marie-Antoinette Uwimana, RRCS head
of programmes: “The government has started talking
about climate change this year, and as we are a
member of the disaster management task force, we
discussed this with them.” There is now a realisation
that disaster response is no longer enough and that
risk reduction is important and has to be scaled up.
“The impacts from climate change are there and
have been problems in the last years,” according to
Eric Njibwami, head of volunteers. “The eastern and
southern regions suffer from lack of food because
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of the long season without rain.” The result is that
communities can no longer plan harvests or planting
because of erratic rains.
The RRCS tries to address this by informing people
when they are going to have a drought, getting
weather information and warning people to keep
a stock of food. But in the long term, says Eric
Njibwami, people have to “diversify through business
activities or generating other incomes”.
A major problem is that farmers are very traditional
and hesitant to change, says Karamaga. “We may
need to change our crops or diets in the future, but
people change only very slowly.” He believes it’s
important to train volunteers to train farmers to move
away from their traditional methods of producing
crops, which may not be the most efficient in today’s
circumstances.
Clearly water management and environmental
protection of land is going to be key. Due to population pressure much of Rwanda has been deforested
– with resulting soil degradation and erosion which
worsens the impact of drought. Almost 90% of the
population use wood as cooking fuel. Mobilising the
community to plant trees is, therefore, an important
objective for the Rwanda Red Cross. The eventual
aim is for every district to have a nursery with 10,000
seedlings.
Swamps
Rwanda not only has numerous hills but also numerous swamps at the bottom of the hills. In the past
many of these were not cultivated because of the
expense of drainage and managing the swamp.
However, given the pressure on land and more erratic
climactic conditions that affect crops traditionally
grown on the hillsides, developing swamps would
provide new arable space, for beans, rice or cassava.
Underground water also means that agricultural production is less dependent on rainfall and can survive
periods of drought.
After a long drought which killed livestock in Kenya, floods took what was left. This man lost most of his goats and sheep.
Photo: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
The RRCS has one such project which began several
years ago – some 10 hectares of the Agatenga
swamp are now successfully cultivated, providing
beans, cassava and rice to nearby communities.
This part of Rwanda has been hit by drought in the
last few years and up to 30% of the people are foodinsecure. Developing projects such as this is part of
the RRCS strategy to promote the capacity of local
communities to cope.
Emmanuel Munyentwari is one farmer who works
there. He has his own plot of land on the hillside
but there he is more dependent on rain. “Last year
rain was expected in September but it came only
in November,” he says, “so we couldn’t plant until
November and people had little to eat – there were
food shortages.” But the extra crops that he grows
in the swamp project are useful. His own harvest is
low and he is really not growing enough food to eat.
His dream, he says, is that one day he will be able to
afford school fees to send his wife back to school.
“The Red Cross did a good job here,” he adds,
“and I hope it can expand.”
Training volunteers and mobilising the community is
key to dealing with climate-change impacts. Yvonne
Kabagire is a communications officer at the RRCS
and is also a radio presenter with her own 15-minute
programme, Rwanda Red Cross Humanitarian
Action. Every week she covers subjects such as HIV/
AIDS, the environment, drought, floods and disasters,
and commands an audience of no less than 70% of
the entire population of Rwanda.
Kabagire sees radio as an important tool in disseminating information on climate change. “People
need to know about it because our country is not an
island,” she explains. “They need to understand the
phenomenon and how they can have a role in building coping strategies.”